“M. K. Gandhi was harmful to the world,” one student wrote on his Instagram story, sharing a provocative video on Gandhi’s birth anniversary. When I asked why he posted such a video, the 15 year old replied, “It was to upset one of my classmates who admires Gandhi.” This classmate had ridiculed him for his admiration of another Indian freedom fighter, and in his mind he was simply retaliating.
While disagreements over historical figures are not uncommon, the incident reminded me of the growing societal polarization and how deeply it affects our youth.
“The world is already very polarized. Let’s try not to be haters and add fuel to the fire,” I said, hoping to start a conversation. He responded, “But what does polarization mean?” His genuine curiosity gave me a reality check— adolescents may be affected by societal polarization but may know little about it. “Polarization happens when people who disagree stop talking to each other and distance themselves. They cut ties, harbor resentment, and push each other away,” I explained.
This exchange left me reflecting on the role and importance of social and emotional learning (SEL) in today’s schools. Our youth face a myriad of challenges daily, from bullying and discrimination to climate change and societal polarization. How can we help them become more attuned to the pressing issues around them, including those that affect people different from them? How can we, as educators, guide our students in expanding their circle of concern? And perhaps most importantly, what if SEL were ultimately about making the world a better place?
Despite the popularity of SEL programs, especially in the Global North, few explicitly focus on contributing to the greater good. Perhaps this is because dominant cultures in the Global North tend to emphasize individual needs over the collective well-being of society and humanity. However, global issues such as pandemics, geopolitical conflicts, refugee crises, and poverty demand a shift from an individual focus to the greater good, emphasizing collective action and long-term well-being. This shift can begin at a young age by encouraging students to extend their care and concern beyond themselves.
Teaching care and concern
I am a researcher of educational psychology with a deep interest in studying the social and emotional development of students. I am currently a scientist at Yale’s Center for Emotional Intelligence and a senior fellow at the Greater Good Science Center. To address the challenge of broadening students’ circle of concern, I developed a classroom-based program called Samvedana in collaboration with a group of teachers in India.
Samvedana is a Sanskrit term meaning care and concern for others, encompassing both humanity and nature. Caring for others involves recognizing their needs and challenges, developing a sense of connection to their struggles, feeling a genuine emotional drive to help, and cultivating the motivation to take action. At its core, concern includes empathy, compassion, and “prosocial” (kind and helpful) behavior—the three key qualities the Samvedana program seeks to instill in students.
The three-month program consists of 10 sessions designed for adolescents. The first three sessions focus on identifying emotions, learning to take others’ perspectives, and responding with empathy. The next three sessions center on cultivating compassion, including mindful engagement with others, recognizing our shared humanity, and responding with kindness. Following this, two sessions focus on fostering gratitude and understanding the interconnectedness of all human lives, with a key message: “I am because we are,” or Ubuntu.
In the ninth session, students interact with peers from environments they typically would not visit. For example, in the pilot program, two groups visited a school for the deaf, while another group visited an after-school youth development program in a low-income neighborhood. The final session is dedicated to reflection, where students create personal action plans to practice empathy, compassion, gratitude, and helping behaviors in their lives.
Each 75-minute session includes a guided meditation, activities, and suggestions for home practice. The meditation exercises evolve from breath-focused meditation to compassion meditation and finally to loving-kindness meditation. The activities encourage discussions and reflections. For example, one activity involves using the Footprint Calculator to compute personal ecological footprints, followed by a class-wide discussion. Home assignments incorporate several practices from the Greater Good in Education website, such as mindful eating, food gratitude, and random acts of kindness.
In a pilot study conducted with 130 middle school students from middle-income families in India, students showed large improvements in their reports of concern for others. Specifically, they improved moderately in perspective taking and prosocial behavior. They improved slightly less in empathic concern (or feeling care and concern for others), relatively speaking. Notably, students who initially reported below-average concern for others demonstrated the highest growth, suggesting that the program may have had the greatest impact on those who needed it most.
In interviews with 17 students, all students mentioned learning about emotional regulation and mindful engagement. One seventh-grade student reflected, “We don’t usually think about how our words and actions affect others. Meditation made me start considering others more.” They also described their efforts to take others’ perspectives and communicate with greater empathy in their daily lives, leading to stronger relationships. As another student shared, “I’ve started caring more about others. Recently, a friend opened up to me about her family problems, and I found myself saying, ‘Don’t worry. Everything will be alright.’ I had never said anything like that before.”
Lastly, students spoke about developing and practicing kindness and gratitude. One confessed, “[I realized] we should never think only about ourselves but also about others. Before, I would take opportunities for myself at the expense of others. Now I share them.”
Teachers who implemented the program also reported becoming more aware of their own behaviors and felt encouraged to practice mindfulness, kindness, and perspective taking. One teacher shared, “When we did the mindful eating activity, I realized I never ate my food mindfully. From that point on, I started eating mindfully, and it allowed me to convey this practice to my students.” Another teacher echoed a similar sentiment, saying, “The Ecological Footprint survey made me realize how I was harming nature. It made me feel the need to rethink my actions.”
SEL for the greater good
These findings are promising for future research and the continued development of similar initiatives. Our results suggest that an SEL approach that integrates empathy, compassion, and prosocial behavior into fostering concern for others is worthy of further exploration in programs for young people.
Educators can make simple adjustments to their existing SEL programs to orient them toward the greater good. For example, many programs already include some form of meditation. Adding a reflective component to these sessions—one that specifically focuses on expanding the circle of concern from “I” to “we”—can be an excellent starting point.
Lessons and activities that teach students about emotions, their effects on themselves and others, and strategies for emotional regulation could be a valuable next step. Additionally, incorporating explicit activities that target perspective taking and compassionate listening can help students direct their attention toward understanding and addressing the needs of others.
Finally, exercises that encourage students to integrate prosocial qualities into their daily routines can create a natural bridge between classroom learning and real-life application. Resources like the GGSC’s Greater Good in Education website offer hundreds of free practices for educators.
Growing students’ concern for others aligns with a deeper truth: Our well-being is intricately linked to the well-being of those around us. By cultivating empathy and compassion in young people, we are helping them recognize our shared humanity and the inherent connectedness of our lives. This understanding allows them to transcend self-interest and focus on the collective good.
If you think of this sense of “us” as a circle, we can choose to keep it small, encompassing only ourselves and our close-knit groups, or expand it to include all of humanity and the planet. Given the growing challenges we face—from climate change to societal polarization—expanding our circle of concern seems not only necessary but urgent. SEL programs that emphasize this broader, more inclusive perspective have the potential to be transformative.
So, what happened to the young boy from the beginning of this story? Just two hours later, he posted a new Instagram story celebrating Gandhi and highlighting his key contributions to India’s freedom struggle. I was pleasantly surprised and congratulated him. “I’m so impressed with you. You’ve shown an open mind, and that’s exactly what we need in our polarized world—a genuine effort to understand and appreciate each other’s humanity. Proud of you!” His willingness to reflect and expand his circle of concern left me feeling hopeful for the future.
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